zlacker

>>lordna+(OP)
I guess it is a perfect opportunity to thank dang and sctb for their unobtrusive and friendly moderation efforts.

The article itself was a bit disappointing because it focused on political issues. In my opinion the strength of HN in this regard is that it is both a "sjw cesspool" and a "haven for alt-right", as evidenced by the fact that a comment on a controversial topic can easily float near zero points while raking in both upvotes and downvotes. And even those who refer to it as "the orange site" still come back and comment. In other words, HN may be an echo chamber but it is a pretty big one with a lot of voices in it.

>>dunkel+xc
My complaint about political topics is that the views expressed just aren't very well informed. Comments are typically what smart engineers would write, but there is very rarely any expertise in the topic like there would be in a discussion about compilers.

>>07d046+Gi
Well informed in what respect? Who should would be considered well informed? People who study politics professionally, so, journalists?

I think the discussions here tend to be far more well informed than most political discussions, most of which amount to essays by people who don't even want you to be well informed.

This silly New Yorker article is a good case in point. It lists a whole host of complaints about comments here and links to exactly none of them, thus not even letting the reader check if they agree with the journalists assessment. They do of course link to the stories themselves, because those are written by journalistic allies, although the story link would be at the top of any linked HN page.

Literally, in a story about HN discussions, none of the links at the start of the story actually go to them.

I can only assume this is because so many of those discussions contain well argued, well written comments dissecting poor quality political campaigning that's posing as journalism, and Anna Wiener doesn't want her audience to be exposed to that.

And given her attitude I'm not surprised she doesn't want people to see the discussions here. Look at her list of complaints: "ill advised citations", "thought experiments abound", "humane arguments are dismissed as emotional". "Logic, applied narrowly, is used to justify broad moral positions".

So this journalist literally rejects logic and thought as a basis for reaching conclusions! I mean, ill advised citations! This is a new concept I've never encountered before. It speaks volumes about the parlous state of the New Yorker that citing sources and using logic is considered bad behaviour. Why should such people be considered better informed than us when it comes to politics?

>>repolf+Fs
I agree. The New Yorker or New York Times dances around topics, giving random human interest tidbits or anecdotes and never gets to the heart of any discussion. It's all fluff.

HackerNews comments in general are concise and to the point. Logical, well-reasoned arguments aren't a part of modern politics or journalism so to this writer it seems like some curious fantasy world. Luckily new online media like Young Turks, Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro have actual discussions instead of sound bites or roundabout intellectualism like the New Yorker. I'd take the recent hour-long Bernie Sanders interview with Joe Rogan over anything on CNN. Corporate media puts a spin on every discussion and it almost always makes things worse.

>>halfjo+XJ
I would agree with you but think your examples are poor. Rogan generally lets his guests just talk about what they want to talk about without questioning them. Ben Shapiro sounds like he knows what he's talking about, but tends to pick debates with college students. Shapiro is full of platitudes, something which you seem to criticize the New York Times and New Yorker about interestingly. All of the people you mention, besides the Young Turks who I don't know anything about, lack self-awareness of their place in the world and the effect of their words on the general populace. I'd also argue that CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc have the same issues.

Also I'm not advocating for cable news, I think for profit news is generally terrible.